A clean shiny hardwood floor will make your home beautiful and stand out to friends and colleagues that come to visit. A clean hardwood floor adds value to your home when you are trying to sell your home. Buyers look at the floor and see how beautiful, clean, and immaculate it is and loves it. This floor can literally sell your home for you, even if there other negatives. Prospective homeowners will overlook these things if their first impression is a strongly positive one.
There are a number of steps that homeowners can consider to keep their floors looking fantastic. This is without the need for a hardwood floor cleaning service. There are companies that provide professional hardwood floor cleaning services. However, if homeowners can do this work themselves. They will save money and their home’s hardwood floor will always be glistening and looking great.
Hardwood Floor Cleaning Service
If you decide to hire a Hardwood Floor Cleaning Service, use the following steps as a guide to interviewing these companies regarding the process they use, the chemicals if any that they use, and the machines they use to ensure that they will deliver the results that you desire.
Preparing to Clean Your Hardwood Floor
There are several steps that homeowners can consider. Take a look at these and apply those that make sense for your flooring:
Step One – determine the type of finish that is on your floor. If there is a protective urethane or polyurethane finish to your floor, there is already a thin protective layer on the floor. Other floors may be natural wood with an oil-based finish, varnish, or even floors with no finish on them. Check with the original owners or with the store that the flooring was purchased from to determine what finish is on your floor.
Step Two – floors that are sealed need only vacuuming and mopping with a mild soap and water solution. Never leave water on the floor and usually, a damp mop is preferred rather than a wet mop. Oil treat floors need to be vacuumed and then an application of paste wax to protect them from stains and water. For all other floors depending on the finish, there are several cleaners available on the market.
Step Three
Avoid water on your floors. Water causes the wood to expand and even crack in places. It may also leave watermarks. If you must use water on an unfinished floor, just use a damp mop and never leave water droplets on the floor or allow water to go between the cracks.
Step Four – even protective covers will wear down over time, especially in high traffic areas. This protective cover may need to be sanded at some point and the floor recoated with whatever protective cover you are using. For sanding tips, refer to several of our other posts on hardwood floor refinishing.
Step Five – keep your floors clean and free of grit that is tracked in from outside. Remove your shoes at the entry to your home and vacuum on a regular basis, even every day in high traffic areas if there is a lot of grit being tracked into the home.
Step Six – install area mats to protect entrance areas and other high traffic areas. Vacuum these mats regularly each time you vacuum the rest of the home. The rugs will add to your overall décor and also capture any grit that is attached to the bottom of your shoes. This is the main reason that the rug should be vacuumed often.
At some point, you may decide that a hardwood floor cleaning service might be a better choice. Consumers may want to hire a floor cleaning service once a month to keep their floors looking pristine and vacuuming every couple of days to avoid long-term damage. The cleaning service may also vacuum as well before they actually clean the floor.